St. Paddy’s Shoe

Tomorrow is St. Patrick’s day. Not just a very holy day for the most widely celebrated Saint in the Catholic Collection, St. Paddy is also the most notable Irish saint, giving way to Irish heritage celebrations around the world by people of Irish decent, people of not-Irish decent, and people who showered that morning with Irish Spring. Most Americans will celebrate their non Irish heritage by wearing green, getting drunk off of green beer, and making out with someone wearing green Mardi Gras beads and green hairspray.

Image

The whole thing is very authentic.

Seeing how popular this whole St. Patrick’s day this is, Nike, the popular athletic footwear company, wanted to get in on the action honor the history and culture of Good Old Erin.. and came up with a shoe that very accurately depicts how Americans view Ireland. The new Nike SB Dunk Low, pictured below, is a lovely blend of black with shades of brown, has been nicknamed “Black and Tan,” referring to the boozy beer beverage made from mixing Guinness and Harp.

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I actually really like these sneakers. I love mixing neutrals.

 

The problem with the nickname is that “black and tan” was also the nickname for the Royal Irish Constabulary Reserve Force, a British parliamentary group deployed in the early 1920’s when the Irish were revolting (I mean, they can be pretty disgusting, but this was revolution revolting) to help keep the peace. Keeping the peace included some pretty shady tactics. Like destroying property. Or beating up civilians. Or killing them.

So by naming the new shoes “Black and Tan” Nike has effectively said “we don’t know anything about Irish heritage, but we’re willing to pretend along with the rest of America.”

Unfortunately, this has pissed off the few Irish Americans that know anything about their heritage. (I brought up this situation to my husband of Irish decent, and he knew nothing of the fear-mongers-in-khakis  until I explained it to him).

“Is there no one at Nike able to Google ‘Black and Tan?”

-Ciaran Staunton, president of Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform

It also pissed off other groups of people… like, you know… the Irish (I mean, who would ruin a perfectly good Guinness by mixing it with Harp? AMIRIGHT?). But since when did Americans ever worry about what they thought? In fact, when have Americans ever thought of anyone except themselves?

Well, to help people better understand how offensive this oversight is, I’ve come up with a few shoe nicknames that your average American would understand:

 

The Reservation Runners: So comfortable you’ll cry a single tear.

The Slave-Drivers: The best for whipping yourself into shape.

The Westborough Flat Shoe: 4 out of 5 Baptists pick-it.

The Nazi Cap-toes: Goose-step into one.

The Al-Qaeda Kickers: You’ll feel like you can fly in them.

Pink Slime? Sounds Delicious.

I’ve been seeing a lot of pink slime in the news lately.


No. That's not Culver's frozen custard. That's meat.




Pink slime is apparently something that’s been in meat for years but is just now getting some media attention thanks to celebrity chef Jamie Oliver. What the meat packing industry does is take all the cow stuff that’s supposed to be in dog food like connective tissue (tendons, ligaments, cartilage, buttholes etc. Basically all the cow parts Eastern European pickle and call regional delicacies), mash it up, centrifuge the fat off it, blast it with ammonia gas (ammonia is commonly found in pee, household cleaners and wood treatment) and mix it up with ground beef.


According to the USDA, it’s safe to eat. People have been eating it for years. The National Meat Association says that it’s all beef since it’s made from cows (cow poop is also made from cows. Cow poop is not beef) but the media has launched a smear campaign against pink slime. Maybe people wouldn’t be so wary of it if it was called something else but when you look at this picture what other names can you think of?


I've stared at this picture for ten minutes and the only names I can come up with are "beef sludge" and "meat goo"




Even if the campaign against cow sludge is just propoganda and cattle muck is perfectly safe and nutritious, the campaign is working. McDonald’s and Taco Bell have both pledged to stop using beef gunk in their food. Can you blame them?


You've eaten this. If you've had a burger in the last fifteen years meat guck has been inside you.




Even though this stuff has been labeled inedible by Taco Bell, the USDA is still selling meat ooze to schools for lunch. While the USDA does have a history of throwing kids under the obesity bus for a quick buck (pizza is a vegetable!), they’ve sort of caved recently and are now letting schools choose if they want beef with pink slime in it. So now the schools get to choose if kids get to eat slurryburgers for lunch.


America!

Wisconsin Forced to Clarify Drunk Driving Laws Because It’s Wisconsin.

I know state rivalry is stupid. Why Minnesotans make fun of Wisconsin…ites? Wisconsonians? Wisconsiners? Whatever. Why we make fun of them is beyond me. I don’t even like sports so it makes even less sense because I don’t even hate their football team. Whatever the reason I will make fun of Wisconsin whenever I have the chance because they’re a bunch of fat, cheese eating drunken hicks even though Minnesotans are pretty much the same thing.


That being said, of course this is a news story in Wisconsin. Stupid hillbillies.


For those of you afraid of clicking blue words, I’ll break it down for you. A man got pulled over last winter on a frozen lake with a Blood-Alcohol content of .365 . For those of you unfamiliar with BAC, here’s a handy dandy chart courtesy of wikipedia.


Click for the full article and some interesting stories under the "Highest recorded Blood Alcohol Content" section




I love how in the “>.50” row the behavior listed is “death”. Shouldn’t “life” be listed in the impairments column?


Personal reference: One time when I was 21 I bought a breathalyzer from Sharper Image and turned it into a drinking game with my roommates. The name of the game was “Let’s See How High We Can Get The Numbers on This Thing”. My last memory of the night was blowing into it and reading “.22” before blacking out.


Back to the story. Prosecutors charged the guy with drunk driving because he was driving incredibly drunk. “A judge dismissed the case, though, ruling Wisconsin’s drunken driving laws apply to premises open to public motor vehicle use and the lake didn’t qualify.”


Thankfully, the case was appealed and the appeals court decided driving drunk is still driving drunk even if it’s not on a street. Frankly, I can’t see how this was dismissed to begin with. Most Wisconsin frozen lakes have nicer houses on them than most residential neighborhoods (take that, you stupid state!).


Just to be safe, here’s a list for that judge who dismissed the case of places that aren’t open to public motor vehicle use that people should not drive while intoxicated to the point they almost die.



Playgrounds

Hospitals

Basketball Courts

The Bottom of Unfrozen Lakes

Liquor Stores

Most Churches (I think you can if you’re a Scientologist. It’s a religious thing)

Movie Theaters.



On a completely unrelated note I’ll be at St. Croix Casino in Danbury, WI tonight and Turtle Lake, WI tomorrow. Go Packers!

Mitt Romney: Out of Touch?

Opposite Day Fox News posted an article about Mitt Romney saying yet another rich guy thing. This time he mentions about how a bunch of NFL team owners are friends of his during a question about football in a radio interview –


[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N43njcpNcHs&w=420&h=315]


Romney constantly faces accusations of being out of touch and not knowing what it’s like to not be insanely wealthy. You’d think people would want to know more about his weird religion –



Google autocomplete. Vox populi, vox dei.


but the scrutiny always falls on his “gaffes” that make him seem out of touch with the average American. Here’s a few choice quotes from the campaign trail that have made the news recently.


“I’m not concerned about the very poor. Fuck them. Fuck poor people. Ugh.” – Mitt Romney, following his victory in the Florida primary. CNN


“I love it here in the south! I’m learning to say y’all, I like grits, I own several slaves!” – Romney in a campaign speech in Mississippi. MSNBC


“I love Detroit automobiles! (My wife) Ann actually has two fresh Cadillacs flown in every week and she drives most of them before throwing them away.” – Romney stumping in Michigan. C-SPAN


“Thank you for the toilet paper bird!” – Mitt thanking a boy in Denver for folding him an origami cane out of a $1 bill. Washington Post.


“I’ve been a lifelong hunter. Small varmints, mostly. Also, genetically engineered manimals on Dick Cheney’s private island.” Romney explaining his love of hunting. AP.


“They look like ants from up here, don’t they? Like I could just crush them all by stepping on them and not feel a thing. Just thinking about it gives me an erection.” – On a flight from Dallas to Boston. NYT.



Seriously, he doesn’t seem that out of touch to me.



Oil portrait of Mitt Romney painted by Rembrant clone.

Youngnotions.com Will Drop Sponsorship of Rush Limbaugh Immediately.

Today I would like to announce that youngnotions.com will be ending it’s 25 year relationship with the Rush Limbaugh show in light of his recent comments about activist Sandra Fluke.


While advertising on Rush Limbaugh’s program has certainly brought over a lot of the core conservative demographic that we aim at, Rush’s statements and subsequent bullshit non apology have crossed a line of decency for us.


While readers of the blog have called on us to pull advertising many times in the past, like when he said Michael J. Fox was faking his Parkinson’s symptoms in a commercial for stem cell research. We decided to keep giving him money.


People sent petitions with hundreds of signatures to the offices of youngnotions.com when he called American soldiers who criticized the Iraq war “phony soldiers” but we decided to keep advertising with him.


When Rush played the “parody” song “Barack the Magic Negro” and continued to play it and even defend it when called out on it’s offensiveness, we stayed by his side.


When Rush admitted to being addicted to painkillers and was arrested for doctor shopping to get painkillers but then served no jail time because he paid $30,000 which is funny because on his radio show he said drug offenders should be convicted and sent up the river so now he’s proven that he’s a liar and a hipocrite, we kept advertising with him.


His comments about Sandra Fluke, however, are frankly too much. While we were happy in our relationship with a lying, hipocritical, racist, anti soldier anti disability talk show host we cannot ethically pay advertising money to a lying, hypocritical, racist, anti-soldier, anti disability drug addict talk show host who is also misogynist.


We hope conservative fans of youngnotions.com understands our position and will continue to support us. We’ll still bring you all the tradition and family values that you enjoy five days a week and you’ll be glad to know that all revenue that was directed towards ads on Rush Limbaugh’s program will be shifted to the construction of Glenn Beck’s “Spaceship to Heaven”.

this is actually his mugshot. No lie.

City Pages Readers Poll Voting Guide

Every year twin cities alternative news weekly City Pages does a “Best of the Twin Cities” issue. Our local source for information on expensive restaurants and cheap prostitutes asks it’s readers to put in their vote for such categories as “best place for a first date” and “best lake” (how can I choose? THERE’S TEN THOUSAND OF THEM). One of the categories is “best blog” so if you like what you read here and live in the twin cities why don’t you


COME OOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNN




Some of you may wonder how I could be deluded enough to say that this is the best blog in the Twin Cities but do I need to remind you of all the good this blog has done in the last year?


Who got pepper sprayed by riot cops while breaking the story of Occupy Wall Street? This blog. Who raised less than $50,000 in charity last year? This blog. Who hosted peace talks between Israel and Palestine? This blog. Who made you realize that the word “blog” sounds really weird if you read it several times in the same paragraph? This blog. We’ve done so much for you and all we ask is that you take a minute to tell a free newspaper that we’re better than everybody else.


Don’t just vote for us, though. There’s plenty of other categories in their reader poll and if you’re having trouble deciding who to vote for, you can just use my handy-dandy voter recommendation guide!


youngnotions.com recommends –


Best Bus Route
The 17.
It takes me from my place to The Monday Night Comedy Show. That’s where the drinks are.

Best Lake
I seriously don’t know how one lake is better than another so I’m just going to say Lake Harriet because I got married in front of that one.

Best Local Blog
youngnotions.com . Duh.

Best Local Boy Made Good
Charles Lindbergh. He’s our most famous racist.

Best Local Girl Made Good
Mandi Young. She bailed me out of jail at 4AM, people. 4AM!

Best Local Website
http://www.davidicke.com/

Best Neighborhood
North Minneapolis

Best Place For a First Date
North Minneapolis

Best Place to People Watch
North Minneapolis

Best Place to Take Out of Town Guests
North Minneapolis

Best Politician
Michele Bachmann (she has provided me with countless hours of entertainment).

Best State Fair Food
Beer from a backpack sneaked in

Best Street
Asphalt

Best Strip Club
Under the Stone Arch Bridge on Saturday nights (the homeless women will give a lapdance for a sandwich).

Best Tweeter
@ThePatrickBauer

Best Villian
Doctor Light



Jesus Christ I clicked “next” and there’s like 30 more questions. Whatever. Use your best judgement for the other categories or just do what I did and fill out “Baba Booey” for everything. Thanks for voting!

Spring Break! Woo (or not)!

The story of the protestor is the story of a hero. It’s no small wonder that Time named The Protestor it’s 2011 person of the year. Activism has, throughout history, been the impetus of change and progress towards equality. Bringing to light oppression and clamoring for the case of human rights, activism has been seen in everything from racial issues, gender issues, ecological issues, working conditions and spring break.


Yes. Spring break.


This is the story of the brave parents and students of Sartell, MN who are fighting to save spring break. The school board in this central MN town has decided to spread spring break out over the course of extended weedends in the late winter / early spring and these stalwart souls saw the grave injustice that is taking a week off from school and not eliminating it but spreading it around. These people realize the necessity for high school students to have spring break. They know how important it is for a young mind to do a beer bong at Senor Frog’s in Cancun. They know how character building it can be to ask Siri if morning after pills are over the counter in Orlando between dry heaves.


Much like Mahatma Ghandi, the good people of Sartell have taken civil disobedience as far as creating a facebook page and t shirts to raise awareness of their struggle.


"I Bet My Hunger Strike Will Get More Likes Than the British Army!"




From a declaration on one of their facebook pages (there’s more than one!) – “This is a group of outraged parents/students we are the majority in Sartell and we will not stand for the actions of our school board, we will oppose the decision of the school board, until they realize they have no right to take away the sacred [spring break],”


Keep fighting the good fight, people of Sartell. You know your cause is a noble one if the Beastie Boys wrote a song about it. Vox populi, vox dei.

If Making Fun of Michele Bachmann is Illegal I May Have More Jail Stories to Post Real Soon.

I’m not obsessed with Michele Bachmann. Sure, she’s been the subject of ridicule from me a few times and I’ve even taken shots at her as she faded from the political limelight but it’s nothing more than the product of lazy writing. She’s crazy, constantly in the news (especially here in MN) and when you’re trying to get a new blog posted every weekday by noon sometimes you pick the low hanging fruit.


Unfortunately, I may have to start looking at other fruit to pick because insulting Michele Bachmann is now something that can prompt a grand jury investigation.



Seriously. A grand jury in D.C. just subpoenaed twitter to get the identity of a user that “professed desire to engage in sadomasochistic activities” with Michele Bachmann. Somebody should have told him that Marcus is more the whips and chains type.


The man, known only as “Mr. X” in the subpoena, tweeted last year “I want to fuck Michelle Bachman (sic) in the ass with a Vietnam era machete”. Hell, the paragraph following is so hilarious I’m going to post the whole thing, unedited (the entire subpoena can be found on the strib article linked above).


“Unfortunately, an overview of Mr. X’s Twitter page is warranted. Mr. X’s body of tweets is extremely crude and in almost incomprehensibly poor taste. Occasionally political but almost consistently vacuous, his oeuvre represents an infantile attempt at humor that brings to mind the most obscene aspects of Andrew Dice Clay, but without even the infinitesimal modicum of artistic creativity that Mr. Clay managed to possess. The page is entirely without merit, comedic or otherwise. More offensive even than Mr. X’s chosen vocabulary is the pathetic transparency and vapidity of his attempt to elicit the attention on the internet that he surely lacks in real life. Somehow, this attempt has succeeded to the tune of, at the time of the issuance of this Order, 736 followers – a number that will certainly and regrettably grow once this Order is released to the public. A sad state of affairs indeed. Readers are free, though ill-advised, to form their own opinions regarding Mr. X’s output in their own time. It suffices here to include a mere sampling some representative tweets, which are replicated without modification.

Goddamn I just smacked my wife with my Dick… Now she has a cock shaped bruise on her face… Take that take that take that (there were a few more tweets in the subpoena but I’ll just leave it at that)



Holy shit this Mr. X guy just got served in more ways than one. Judge Smackdown tore this guy apart! I seriously hope my body of work is never submitted to a grand jury because I don’t think I could handle the criticism. That was harsh.


This all seems a bit silly, really. I obviously don’t care for Crazyeyes McGaypray but I don’t wish her any physical harm (you hear that, CIA? I’m harmless!). Genuine threats to her should be investigated but I sincerely doubt this is a sincere threat. He’s just a shitty comedian trying to get shock value laughs. Mr. X probably won’t be getting his hands on any machete, Vietnam era or otherwise and Michele Bachmann’s ass can stop worrying and get back to clenching every time somebody tries to force energy efficient light bulbs on her.


Judging by the uncomfortable look on her face in this pic maybe Mr. X actually did follow through.

“Bone Mangler” Playground Slides Recalled For Safety Reasons.

Parents going overboard with protecting their children has been talked about so much it’s cliche. When thinking of child safety the image of “Tucker” or “Hunter” or whatever yuppie kid name comes to mind, covered head to toe in headpads and toehelmets.

"Mom! I can't move!"

So considering that this society is so afraid that it’s children is going to get a splinter that they wrap a child in pillows every time they play a board game it’s strange that this slide was sold to schools all over the country.

The Groinbuster! From Bustco!

This is the Slalom Glider and it’s currently being recalled like crazy because a bunch of kids fractured their bones on it. Look at it! It looks like it was designed to make kids fall off it.

not pictured: pit of broken glass at the bottom.

The weird part is that most of the kids who were injured on it were injured because there’s no platform between the ladder and the beginning of the slide so they were falling off the damn thing before even making their terror straddle ride down. I just hope there were no bullies in the playgrounds where these were installed. I remember one time in elementary school some kid held his hand out at the bottom of the slide and smacked me in the face. I can only imagine what he would have done if I had come at him spread-eagle.

The producer of the slide has apologized for their poor design and promised to replace each slalom glider with an abandoned refridgerator.

You can't escape the fun!

Rape: How Much is Too Much?

Being a woman on Fox News has to be the easiest job in the world. Fox News has an obligation to give both conservative sides of the story and it’s hard to find educated, republican women in broadcasting since republican ideologies kind of tilt towards the “barefoot and pregnant” end of the spectrum. When Fox can get a woman on camera they’ll let her say whatever she wants and they have to agree with her because she’s a conservative. Victoria Jackson’s taken full advantage of it and political writer Andrew Coulter has spent years in drag just to get some screen time.



Classic "Bosom Buddies" grift.




One commentator who really tested the limits of this unwritten rule is journalist and horrible human being Liz Trotta



[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ooMMue-qwQ&w=420&h=315]


I’m not going to explain why that’s wrong because I shouldn’t have to if you’re not a rapist and The Daily Show already did a perfect job skewering her. Hell, just google “Liz Trotta” and you can find an entire news media dogpile on her but what’s really strange is that it’s been nearly a week now and neither she nor Fox have issued any follow up statements to this. No apology, no backpedal, no defense, no announcement that she’s been fired. It’s like they’re just waiting for this all to blow over.


What’s even more messed up is that while this may be the most horrible thing she’s said on air, it’s not the first completely awful thing she’s said on air. Here she is wishing for the assassination of the President.



[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjYpkvcmog0&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3]


She later apologized for her “lame attempt at humor”.


Frankly, I think she wants to be fired. She’s been doing the pundit gig far too long and just wants to retire but she needs to get fired to get a severance package so she’s just going to say the most awful things and hope to get axed but Fox just won’t let her go. The question is how does she take it to the next level? She’s already called for the president’s assasination “jokingly” and told women who serve in the armed forces that they should expect to be raped. The only way she could step up her game is if she did a mashup of the two statements.


"Frankly, I think the President should expect to be raped."




Somebody should just tell her that if she wants Fox News to fire her she should come out in support of same sex marriage, universal health care or labor unions.